


Uncanny Valley

by LockPendulum



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: M/M, monster au, werewolf!kaito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 17:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19446385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LockPendulum/pseuds/LockPendulum
Summary: Kaito is stuck in a haunted house. There, he finds a doll having fun scaring the hell out of him.Oumota Week Day 2: Monster AU





	Uncanny Valley

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, didn't do day 1, shhhhh

There were three things that Kaito hated dealing with the most.

1\. Being in a dark, haunted house in the middle of the night. Which he was in right now and running for his dear life-

“ _I’m getting out as_ _fast_ _as_ _I can_ _, so stop following me!_ ”

-and screaming at the top of his lungs while begging for his life.

He didn’t know why Shuichi and Maki had made him go into the haunted house. Complete and utter fear had made him completely forget the reason. All he knew was that the creature chasing him was either the second or third thing that made Momota Kaito scared.

2\. Ghosts. Which was ironic, considering that was exactly what Shuichi was. That was fine, though. After being scared half out of his wits, Kaito had eventually realized that Shuichi was a nice ghost. But this thing, if it were a ghost, definitely wasn’t nice.

He turned around a corner and found himself staring at a dead end. He wanted to turn around and continue running, but his heightened senses told him that the creature had also stopped right behind him. His heart thumped louder and louder as he realized that there was no use.

“Aww, maaaan. Is our game of tag already over? I wish you could have continued running with your tail between your legs.”

Already shivering like a leaf, Kaito’s eyes widened as he heard the voice. That wasn’t the faded voice that ghosts had. It sounded human, but since the creature clearly wasn’t, it could only mean the other option.

3\. Dolls. If there was one thing he hated more than ghosts, it was Dolls.

The period of time in which they were created was short, and that had happened long ago. Hence, there wasn’t much information on them. The fear of the unknown, that was one aspect that made them so terrifying to him.

Ironically, that was why he decided to turn around and face it. If he didn’t, he knew he would pass out from the fear, even if it meant facing another type of fear.

When he saw the Doll, it was too late to take back his decision. He should have stayed put and let it end his misery. In the dim light, only one of the eyes was glowing brightly with yellow. It, for lack of a better pronoun, was much shorter than he had expected, and the gender it was based off of was ambiguous.

Another aspect that made a Doll terrifying was how close to human it appeared. But they could never perfectly replicate humans. Humans, so used to establishing patterns in their brains, instinctively know when something just does not match the real thing. Humans have called this phenomenon “the uncanny valley.”

Of course, their creators have tried to make them even more human. Generally without emotion, they become programmed to be able to act with emotion, or so he heard. But that had just fundamentally allowed Dolls the free will that robots nowadays lacked: the ability to lie to humans. In theory, it shouldn’t have been bad, but it was one of the necessary conditions for a single Doll to drive the entire world into Despair.

So when the Doll slowly walked towards him with a smile and said that it wasn’t going to harm him, he didn’t believe it in the slightest.

It tilted its head, supposedly in confusion. “You don’t trust me?”

Kaito barked out, “Hell no! Y-you were chasing m-me just moments ago.”

“I just wanted to play tag with you!”

Its giggling was the creepiest thing he had ever heard in his life, hands down. “Besides, I thought robots couldn’t lie?”

“Why’re you bringing up robots!? You’re not a robot, you’re a Doll.”

It gasped and held its hands to his chest as if hurt. “Are you discriminating against my kind? How mean!”

“My point is that Dolls can lie, so there’s no reason to trust you.”

“Oh?” Its face became emotionless. “Then why’d you trust the human who gave you the mission and promised that this house wouldn’t be haunted?”

“H-how did you know that?”

It held up its nails and studied them as if bored. “I have ears. Obviously.”

“You knew I’d be here tonight,” Kaito stated.

“You’re missing the point,” it shot right back at him. “You’re generally really trusting to the point of gullible. I know your type, and being so simple just makes it easier. But here you are not trusting a word I say.”

“I mean, can you blame me?”

“At least I haven’t tried to kill you yet!”

“Oh.”

It was true. He had been prepared for the attack to come at any moment, but as the words kept on flowing and the light in the doll’s golden eye faded away, his fear gradually melted away.

“I really wasn’t lying, y’know. I just wanted to have some fun. And don’t worry, killing is no fun for me.”

Kaito sighed and finally let his guard down. The Doll really did seem benign, even if it was quite sadistic.

“Hey, hey!” It jumped up and down with fists balled in excitement. “I know Dolls have a bad rep and all, and they’re pretty rare, but have you seriously never met a Doll before?”

“Nope.” God, he was exhausted, and not just from his earlier fight.

“Momota-chan, like all other creatures, we gotta introduce ourselves properly.”

Kaito didn’t miss a beat. “Well that was one hell of an introduction. What gives?”

It giggled again, but thankfully instead of creepy, it was just annoying. “At least it was tons of fun.”

“For you.”

“And also, you don’t know my name.”

“Oh.”

“How many times have you already said that? Hey, are you an idiot?”

“I’m not an idiot!” Kaito sighed in exasperation. “I don’t even know what your gender is.”

“What’s so important about that?”

“So you don’t have one?”

“Mine is based off of what humans call the male gender. Well,” it – he – brought his hand out in an exaggerated motion, “let me finally introduce myself. I’m Ouma Kokichi, and you may refer to me as Mr. Supreme Leader.”

“Hi, Ouma, nice to meet you,” Kaito deadpanned.

“Hey!” He acted affronted. “How dare you disrespect me!”

“I dunno, dude, don’t blame me for not respecting the supreme leader of who knows what.” After his fear went away, Kaito had no problem voicing his attitude towards the Doll. That he had been so afraid of him was laughable.

Kokichi pouted and crossed his arms like a toddler in a tantrum. Kaito noticed that including this action, most of Kokichi’s mannerisms were overly exaggerated. Perhaps that meant that he was an older model compared to the Dolls that were given more natural expressions.

“Momota-chan, if you keep disrespecting me, I won’t tell you where the item is.”

“Wait,” Kaito’s ears perked up, “you know where it is?”

“Yeah, duh. I don’t haunt this place for no reason.”

“Huh,” Kaito’s ears started to droop.

Kokichi tilted his head again. “Why’re you sad?”

He scratched the back of his head. “I dunno, man. I didn’t expect someone to protect it. Doesn’t feel right.”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t tell me you thought I was gonna steal it from you,” he said tiredly. “It’s yours, right? The chest?”

Kokichi stared back blankly. “What about your mission?”

He sighed. “I’m sure my sidekicks will understand. And besides, we can just cancel the quest.”

Kaito lost track of how long they stayed in silence. He probably could have stayed standing there with Kokichi the entire night, but he eventually decided to go back to his teammates.

As he walked past the Doll, he patted his head. “Hey, other than scaring me to hell, it was nice knowing ya, Ouma.”

Kokichi didn’t bother turning around.

As soon as he walked out the house, Kaito deeply breathed in the fresh air. It was so good to be outside in a night like this. One should never spend the night in a dusty place like that, or at least that was what a werewolf would say.

Still, he turned around and bid the house – and the strange, silly, lonely little Doll – a wistful farewell. Of course he was curious as to why Kokichi had made the decisions he did, but there had been no reason for him to ask him that.

He took his time walking to campfire. When the demon and the ghost raised their heads, Kaito held up his empty hands.

“It wasn’t there?” the ghost, Shuichi, said.

“Actually, that’s not it.”

The demon’s wings, blacker than night, perked up slightly.

“I found a Doll haunting the place and trying to protect it.”

Maki’s red eyes glowed slightly. “Did it try to harm you?”

“No, but it sure gave me a real scare!”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “So _that_ kind of Doll.”

“So yeah, I hope you guys don’t mind, but I wanna cancel the mission.”

Maki and Shuichi glanced at each other and nodded. “That’s fine. We got inaccurate information from him, anyways,” Shuichi said.

“Awwww, how sweet~!”

Kaito screamed and scrambled behind Maki’s back. Kokichi stood triumphantly behind where Kaito used to be. After a tense moment, Maki and Kaito relaxed as Shuichi came back into focus.

Kaito was still shivering. “Ouma, what the hell.”

“So that’s the one.” Maki glared at the Doll.

“That doesn’t make sense, though,” Shuichi said faintly. “Kaito said that you were haunting the place.”

“Aaaand who said that I’m not allowed to haunt places anymore, huh?” Kokichi grinned smugly.

“Dude, what about your chest?”

“It’s not like the chest had anything valuable in it,” he said nonchalantly as he waved the topic away. “So just tell the man that.”

Maki asked. “Then why were you haunting the place?”

Kokichi started sniffing and looked like he was on the verge of tears. “W-why are you interrogating me? I’m just a harmless little Doll. See, I didn’t even touch a single furry hair on Momota-chan. Waaaaaaahh!!”

His sudden outburst of crying startled the other three.

“He’s just like a bratty kid!” Maki scowled.

He stopped crying, as if turning off a faucet. “I’m the oldest out of everyone here. If anyone’s a kid, it’s Momota-chan!”

“Huh?!”

“But that’s the truth!” he said excitedly. “Obviously, I’ve been here before the Fall. I even remember the ridiculous name it used to be referred to before everyone gave up. There’s no way Saihara-chan lived so long ago cuz there’s only so long ghosts can last in this world. Same with Harumaki since her wings aren’t white.”

Shuichi fidgeted while Maki narrowed her eyes at him using their names so familiarly. However, they didn’t comment.

“But both of you live, or last in Saihara-chan’s case, much longer than werewolves in general, and you look around the same age, so Momota-chan is most likely the youngest of us all by a long shot. I dunno why you’re letting him call you his sidekicks, but I’m not gonna judge.”

“Hey!” Kaito said indignantly. “If you’re joining us, you’re gonna be my sidekick anyways.”

“Nope! I’m your senior, so you gotta be my minion in my organization.”

“You’re one to say that.” Maki smiled. “You’re still the most immature of us.”

“True,” Kokichi said solemnly. “In the centuries I’ve lived, I haven’t grown emotionally at all.”

“But you’re joining us, right?” Kaito asked with a wide smile, trying to divert the topic. He pretended that he didn’t see the others flinch.

“Well, for me to join another group, it must have the same basic rules as my evil secret organization!”

“What?”

“One must never kill.”

“Oh.” So much for being an evil organization.

Maki was silent.

“And everyone must do what I say, or they’ll be executed.”

Kaito sighed in exasperation. “Dude, don’t joke like that.”

“I never joke. I’m always serious.”

“Liar.”

“Nishishi.”

Maki sighed and glanced at the ghost beside her, who could only shrug. Once Kaito had decided to befriend someone, having them join the team was inevitable. Besides…

“So, you guys okay with him joining?” Kaito asked.

They were curious about this remnant of the past that had been overwhelmed with hope and despair. And maybe through his memories, they could find the keys to their own pasts. So they nodded.

They would just kick him out if he got too annoying. _Oh, how optimistic they had been._


End file.
